


half-forgotten memories

by OnyxSphinx



Series: newmann one-shots [140]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Bickering, M/M, The Drift (Pacific Rim), kind of soft actually???, the black velvet rabbits make an appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22636648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSphinx/pseuds/OnyxSphinx
Summary: Newt and Hermann have a bit of a heart to heart about one of Newt's songs from his time with the Black Velvet Rabbits
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Series: newmann one-shots [140]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1286762
Kudos: 24





	half-forgotten memories

**Author's Note:**

> [@drsarah1281](https://drsarah1281.tumblr.com/) asked: "Okay, now imagine I am falling in love with you. Can you picture it? Now picture that backwards."

They are falling.

The air around screams a high E-flat, and Newt’s mind is full of the black and white of a piano, set in the middle of their living-room—except, no, not _their,_ because Newt grew up in a two-bed apartment in Berlin, its wallpaper cracked and peeling and the only piano he ever got close to was an electric keyboard, its keys plastic and, in places, sticky, not the white of polished ivory.

He remembers playing it with sure hands, a deftness that he knows isn’t his; he’s always been better with stringed instruments, but _he_ has played the piano.

No.

Nope, _not_ Newt who played the piano. That was Hermann. Not him.

Record scratch. Rewind. The Drift bursts in blue and they are swept away.

Hermann’s memories unspool beneath his fingertips, cocoon him in vibrant strands of colourless sensory input. Garmisch-Partenkirchen; the chirp of birds he can’t see, the hot brush of the sun against his skin. The cobblestones of Oxford. The scent of ink.

The kaiju hivemind floods their minds.

And then, just like that, they’re out; Newt’s knees are hitting the pavement with a painful crack and he feels a bit like the force of it has dislodged every bone in his body.

“Ow,” he moans, and the sound comes out a bit nasal. His face throbs. Red specks grow up from the ground—except, no, actually, he’s just _bleeding_ again.

“You’re bleeding,” Hermann says, a fraction of a second later, and Newt doesn’t snap out the retort he’s thinking of because Hermann’s voice is strained and Newt’s pretty sure he’s more than a _little_ freaked out and trying to hold on to—to _anything_ he can.

So instead, he just says, “Nng,” tips his head forward, breathing as evenly as he can; digs out a (Hermann’s) handkerchief from his pocket, thrusting it in what he’s pretty sure is the physicist’s direction on a hunch.

A moment later, Hermann grabs it from him and goes stumbling to heave up the meagre lunch he ate fourteen hours ago.

Newt’s nose finally stops bleeding, which is probably a good sign, and he gives an experimental tilt of his head to confirm; when nothing starts bleeding again, he makes his way over to Hermann. “Hey bud,” he says, “how are you.”

“To use your insipid colloquialisms,” Hermann says, between teeth Newt’s can’t see, but rather can feel, are grit, “I am _straight-up not having a good time,_ Newton, _thank you for asking._ ”

“Stop being me,” Newt snaps, “I need you to be you, Herms, I can’t be you.”

“I’m _not_ being you,” Hermann says, starts an eye-roll, and stops before he even gets a quarter of the way with a hiss of pain. His eye’s ringed red—no _wonder_ that wasn’t fun for him. “I am _mocking_ you, Newton.”

Newt nods. The lines are scripted, rehearsed, they _both_ know this, but, y'know, he’s going to forgive Hermann for clinging to their… _rivalry_ right now. He _is_ pretty stressed. “You were right, by the way,” he says; non-sequitur, but Hermann knows what he means.

“I often…often _am,_ ” he says, the last bit hissed, stressed, and he pitches forward suddenly. Newt darts, as quickly as he can, given he’s not doing to stellar with motor control right now, forward to stabilise him.

“Which one of us wins arguments seven out of eight times?” Newt challenges.

“ _I_ do, Newton,” Hermann says.

Newt scowls at him, and then at the ground. He is, unfortunately, _right._ “Look, just _walk,_ ” he says, instead. “We gotta get to that helicopter, dude, gotta get back to LOCCENT and tell them what we know. Help save the world.”

“We’ll be rockstars,” Hermann says, deadpan, and grips Newt a bit more tightly when he almost stumbles and falls over.

“Myeah,” Newt hums. “Rockstars. C'mon, bud, one foot in front of the other.”

Hermann huffs at him, but he doesn’t protest.

* * *

It takes a bit, but Newt manages to get the both of them out of the medbay and to somewhere more comfortable. Namely, _bed._

 _Hermann’s_ bed, in fact, and Newt lets his head fall onto the pristine white pillow and groans, “Dude, I straight-up would _die_ to sleep with these every night.”

“No need for that,” Hermann says, from above him, actually taking the time to get changed instead of throwing himself face-first, clothed in the thin medical gown, onto the bed. “My bed’s always open to you.”

Normally, Newt would crack some mild to moderately inappropriate joke, but now, all he does is groan again and let his eyes fall shut. Sleep. He wants to _sleep,_ blessed, blessed darkness, oh god, that sounds _so_ good right now—

And it’s not going to happen. Because Hermann’s laid down next to him, and he’s _humming._

Specifically, he’s humming _I Still Don’t Miss You,_ which is to say he’s humming _Black Velvet Rabbits_ and he’s humming the song Newt wrote that is, ostensibly, about a one-night stand, but is _actually_ more about the four-year-long intellectual fling he lowkey had with Hermann until _that_ ended awfully and he spent a week in alternates crying and drinking and _not_ sleeping and trying to put his words to paper and wound up with one of the last songs he’d ever preform with the Rabbits, and not even a proper performance, really, given that it was about three people besides them and he never officially got it put in their discography.

It is, quite frankly, an awful, vent-fuelled song, and really does _not_ paint Hermann in a great light, which, in retrospect, was _not_ really fair of him.

“Uh, Hermann?” he attempts, a little cautiously, “you realise you’re humming a song you’ve never heard, right?”

“Er—what?” Hermann says, stopping his humming, _finally._

“There’s no recordings of it anywhere,” Newt says, slowly.

“No, Newton, but you _insist_ on _singing_ every one of your awful songs in my vicinity,” Hermann says, “something was bound to get stuck at some point.”

“…ah,” Newt says, very eloquently. Offers a weak smile.

“ _However,_ ” Hermann continues, “I _would_ appreciate a bit of clarification, since, as of three hours ago, I’ve been made aware that _I_ was the subject of the song in question.”

“ _Ah,_ ” Newt says, again, and tries to will the ground to suddenly open up beneath him. This is. This is horrifically embarrassing. “Well, to be fair,” he says, “I _wasn’t_ thinking straight.”

Hermann _hmmphs_ quietly, and lets Newt continue. “I mean, like—okay, so, um. Picture this. Newt Geiszler, age twenty-three, sitting in—actually, no,” he shakes his head; stops, when he realises how odd the motion is. “Um. You know the lead-up. Anyway. Okay, now imagine I’m falling in love with you. Can you picture it? Like, the, um—”

“I do not need a lesson on visualisation, Newton,” Hermann says, voice dry as the fucking Sahara.

“Oh, shut up,” Newt snaps. “Now picture that backwards.” There’s a moment of silence, and then Newt adds, “I mean, okay, like, to be fair, I wasn’t probably _actually_ in love with you, because, um, what does that even _mean?_ but I _thought_ I was, and—” he’s kind of running out of air, apparently, but his lungs only decide to inform him of it _now_ and so he trails off with an undignified wheeze.

“ _Newton,_ ” Hermann says, sharply, for someone who’s face Newt knows for a fact is half-smushed into his own pillow.

Right. Breathe. Inhale oxygen, exhale CO2. That’s a thing he can do. Totally.

“Anyway. My point is. I’m sorry for slightly freaking out about you humming a kind of shitty vent-song I wrote about you,” Newt says, and winces at how pathetic it sounds.

“Apology accepted,” Hermann says, far more gracious than he really _ought_ to be about this. “If it assuages your guilt at all, you have, in the past five years, shown that you aren’t the man I met in 2017.”

“God, I hope not,” Newt says. “2017 me was a _dick._ ”

“Mm, agreed,” Hermann murmurs. “Now I’m sure there’s a larger conversation to be had here, but _please,_ let’s have it in the morning, when both of us are better-rested.”

“…probably a good idea,” Newt concedes. “Also, for the record, I’m _not_ in love with you now, either, but I kind of like-like you.”

“I _often_ have good ideas,” Hermann says, and then adds, in a _really_ bad impression of Newt, “ _like-like,_ ” but his voice is sleep-laden and, really, _annoyingly_ adorable.

“Shut up, I hate you,” Newt grumbles. “I can’t believe I ever thought I was in love with you.”

“Mm,” Hermann says, because he just _has_ to get the last word in, “ _sleep._ Now, please.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at [autisticharrow](https://autisticharrow.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
